Search

Rush enumerates the close family friends that are ill or have died, and notes that only one doctor who continues to follow his treatment.

Rush announces that his pupil, Johnny Stall, has died. He mentions that citizens universally exhibit symptoms of the fever, but that the poor suffer the most. He hopes the weather will change.

Rush announces that another of his assistants, Alston, has died. He admits to extreme weakness, but otherwise is in good health. He points out that bleeders, doctors, apothecaries, and nurses are becoming scarce, as are the medical necessities used to treat the fever.

Rush says he has been spending time treating and putting up medicines for the poor. He hopes rain and frost will follow to weaken the contagion. He points out that many have died because they mistake their symptoms for a common fever. He notes that now even the African Americans are succumbing in large numbers.

Rush announces that his final apprentice, John Coxe, has died and that his sister is very ill. There is some rain in the city. He reports that Dr. Wistar has published an account of his recovery that is calculated to undermine Rush's treatments.

Rush reports that his sister is in grave danger and that, by popular demand, physicians have been forced to adopt his treatment for the fever.

Rush records that his case load is increasing, as is his fatigue, but that many of those he treats are out of danger. He reports on the progress of the epidemic in their neighborhood.

Rush defends his taking in Johnny Stall and Ed Fisher, as neither had any other home. His sister, who was at the brink of death, is better, but his mother is now ill and is refusing treatment.

Rush writes that he has seen 100 patients, and that he now saves almost all those he sees within the first day. He notes that some doctors rail against the cure he uses, several of them publishing false information, even though they generally have not visited patients with the fever. He chronicles the fate of several doctors that have contracted the disease. He notes that some of his friends are ashamed to see him once they fall ill. He admonishes her once more to watch the boys closely for signs of infection, for the fever will lie dormant 1 to 16 days following contraction.

Rush notes that his cure is working, but there is a pause in new cases, and that fatalities are now among the poor without access to doctors or respectable people being treated by quacks. He states that if the fever breaks out in Princeton, he will send his assistant John Cox to execute his cure. Once again he documents the health status of his fellow physicians, although he records a rumor that some doctors have ceased seeing patients at all. He then discusses the various treatments that have been used for the fever. In a postscript, he adds that Africans in the city have proven immune to the disease.